1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to exercise equipment, and particularly to a multiple station exercise apparatus in which various exercise stations share a common weight stack.
2. Background Art
A vast array of devices are available for exercising various parts of the human body. One class of such devices that is rapidly gaining in popularity is the multiple station exercise machine, wherein individual stations of the machine are designed to exercise particular muscle groups of the body. An exemplary device of this type is shown and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,844,456 of which the inventor herein is a co-inventor. These devices generally have a single stack of weights that is shared by each of the individual exercise stations.
Many of the prior art multiple station exercise devices, including the one in the aforementioned U.S. Patent, require the operator to connect the weight stack to certain of the exercise stations prior to their use. This is usually accomplished by attaching a cable to a point on an operable member of the exercise station. The need to detach a cable from one exercise station and reattach it to another station is an inconvenience to the operator, and multistation exercise devices have been developed that eliminate this minor inconvenience. Such devices typically employ a complicated arrangement of cables and pulleys so that all of the exercise stations are continuously connected to the single weight stack. A device of this latter type is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,809,972.